test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
The Special Console for Timeships
leviathan99
Member Posts: 7,747 Arc User
Geko has said he wants to introduce timeships into STO at some point.
I just thought of what its special power should be:
Hit/miss/etc. is calculated before it's animated, right?
It should be a special ability that causes a targets actions to happen in reverse and be animated backwards.
When affected, the target's shield heals drain shields. The target's hull heals drains hull.
When the target fires on someone, their hull and shields function in reverse and their movement controls happen in reverse.
So if they fire a torpedo at my hull, a torpedo explosion appears in reverse on my ship and trails back to the target as I get a hull heal.
If they fire a beam at my shields, my shields flare up and a beam backtracks to their ship where it fires in reverse and my shields gain power.
Any energy or projectile they try to fire has the chance to remove that effect from my ship.
It's only usable on enemy ships, not high yield torpedoes or the like that have already fired.
I just thought of what its special power should be:
Hit/miss/etc. is calculated before it's animated, right?
It should be a special ability that causes a targets actions to happen in reverse and be animated backwards.
When affected, the target's shield heals drain shields. The target's hull heals drains hull.
When the target fires on someone, their hull and shields function in reverse and their movement controls happen in reverse.
So if they fire a torpedo at my hull, a torpedo explosion appears in reverse on my ship and trails back to the target as I get a hull heal.
If they fire a beam at my shields, my shields flare up and a beam backtracks to their ship where it fires in reverse and my shields gain power.
Any energy or projectile they try to fire has the chance to remove that effect from my ship.
It's only usable on enemy ships, not high yield torpedoes or the like that have already fired.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
Whatever, the Federation is signatory to the Temporal Accords and as such won't employ weaponry that plays around with time. The Department of Temporal Investigations and its successor, the Starfleet Temporal Integrity Commission, guard the timeline.
That does not preclude the use of timeships, however. A temporal war could be a nice story for a n FE and feature the USS Relativity again.
Since in a real time environment timetravel would be impossible the whole concept would be incredible pointless.
If they introduce it for the visuals alone anyway and it needs a special console don't make it that complicated.
Make it a map wide freeze effect (which will mightily annoy every other player on the map) and you can move freely around the map.
A rewind or speed up effect would be technically unfeasable I think....
At best you could add a timejump into teh future, which would basically be an invisibilit/invulnerability ability that freezes YOU for a while (think The Time Machine effect). And you pick the moment where you want to reenter the timeline.
On thing it eeds of course would be a bigger interior than the outside of teh ship... something Cryptic, I am sure, has absolutely no problem with.
Since there isn't, I don't see much relevancy. But, for the sake of argument, let's think about it.
The reverse attack/heal is certainly a neat idea. I do have a couple of problems with it, though.
The biggest problem I have is that "rewinding time" in this sense is not something I recall ever seeing in Star Trek. One may jump backward in time and (maybe) undo something that happened, but it doesn't get replayed in reverse. Visually it would be a neat effect if it were doable, but it doesn't fit what we know about how time travel works in the Trek universe.
The second problem I have is related to how the game works. In order to "reverse replay" an event that happens in combat, the game would need to be able to programatically keep track of what happened a few seconds before, in a way that is neither too slow nor has a very negative impact on performance, and it would have to do this on a continual basis whether or not you even had the console equipped. I suspect that the game doesn't do that and won't do that. If the ability reversed an event that never happened, or worse reversed it in an inconsistent way, it wouldn't make any sense.
A more likely time-based heal would simply "undo" some amount of hull, shield, and crew damage upon playing a special effect. It could also have the effect of removing or reducing all existing cooldowns. But, useful as that would be, it's kind of boring.
What if... a timeship console allowed you to summon a time-duplicate of your ship? The duplicate would have all of the same equipment and it would have full hull and shields. As an uncontrolled "pet", it would be similar to the "Shard of Possibilities" but used in space. It could also draw threat away from you, buying you time to make repairs and use abilities. This also has some balance implications, of course, but it would be a dramatic effect with a feel very similar to things already in the game as well as being more consistent with how time travel is portrayed in Star Trek. While it would not necessarily be trivial to do, I don't think it would be a major departure in how the game engine works.
The biggest issue with THAT idea is that it isn't anything terribly new. Maybe we can deconstruct some Trek time-travel plots and come up with a better idea?
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Time travel got so bad in TNG one could not swing a dead targ in space without hitting an anomaly it seemed and it only got worse in ENT.
Why do we need a Timeship in STO? (other than to be bought for $20 in the Zen store)
and how do you make one that is balanced? (If that is even a factor in its design)
R.I.P
Please tell me you're joking.
I know, right?
Chance to get the Krenim Temporal Incursion Vessel. Comes with a heavy single beam cannon, target arc 30%, that erases the target's faction from history. Buy your master keys now, cause if the other guys get one into PvP first, you will never even exist to read this warning.
(And for the love of all that's Trek, don't use this ship in wargames!)
However, as a thought experiment, what abilities would a ship that could scan the future have? I'm thinking:
* An accuracy boost.
* A crit chance boost.
* A higher-than-normal proc rate for weapons (say 5% instead of 2.5%).
* Some sort of indicator if a destructible projectile (like a Tricobalt) is going to hit or miss, so you know if you need to destroy it or can ignore it.
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
interesting, but ultimately I don't think the game engine is up to the task.
This game engine is so rigid and inflexible that implementing tech like this would probably break (well, further break) it entirely.
This sig dedicated to the many random objects the Mythbusters crew has blow to smitherines
THIS FOR THE WIN!
DING! DING! DING! you win a cookie
Actual Join Date : Feb 2010
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I suspect that time travel was (over)used because there's no plot breakdown that can't be fixed with a little deux ex machina.
There's no good reason for a Timeship in STO because there's no good way to standardize how time travel "works" in this game. You can't really step backward or forward through your own history in the game, you can only fake it. The closest we really get is mission replay, and you can't really call that time travel... the outcome never really changes and there are no implications for any choices you might be able to make (if any). You could argue that respecs are another form of "time travel", but not in any satisfying way.
Now if the game had a form of persistence that was individually determined by optional or branching objectives in missions, if the outcome of those choices had an effect in the game, and if there was a way to "re-do" those choices to change the effect, then STO time travel could be relevant.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Another version of Scramble Sensors and Anti-Matter Spread?????????????? Do we need another vesrion of SS?
R.I.P
I love the idea of timeships, i'm just not sure how well they'd be exploited in this game. Cryptic would have to make them very underpowered.
JustGaming4US - https://www.youtube.com/user/JustGaming4Us/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/Brent_Justice
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/brentjustice
Van Damme is coming for YOU!
**
Timeships. I am not sure how they could work in the game. Well, from a player perspective anyway.
As a Fleet / STF Boss, a Timeship could be pretty cool. It would be like a more powerful Unimatrix vessel, except that if you are killed by its super weapon you could not respawn for the rest of the match.
OH i know, isnt he the dude that keeps introducing ships/powers that completey throw the games balance our of whack more so each time he makes somthing?
yeah thats the same guy who said people who die to stuff arnt spec'd right... am i right?
that people who have been playing the game since the begining and have a very good grasp of how the game mechanics work (and have helped find bugs that they havnt) and said that those people who help need to learn to play? (or something along those lines)
i bet he doesnt even play the damn game.
He also said that op is the new balance. He doesn't even have an sto account. Apparently, he's taking gozers place as the guy who does all the stupid stuff at cryptic :P
This sig dedicated to the many random objects the Mythbusters crew has blow to smitherines
We need the Omega 13 !
But yeah... 100% against timeships in STO...time travel is used up too much in addition to "Q did it!!!" things. I'd like to go back in time and stop PWE though...
Dec '07 Account
I EARNED 1000 days...I didn't BUY it! New LTS=Death to Vet.System: 10/10/12 Never Forget
Something should be done for those who cared enough to have a 1000+ day sub.
Yes, same guy.
Wouldn't surprise me.... -_-
Now he wants to stick nonsense from Voyager. And we still don't have a Galaxy interior.
And to be clear, I actually do enjoy the game quite a bit, even with it's existing problems and complaints. I don't usually say I DON'T want something in the game, but this is one thing we REALLY don't need.
Timeships as flyable ships in-game would be sort of annoying. NX's and stuff I can rationalize as new ships with exteriors modeled after old designs, but I find it much harder to reconcile the existence of timeships. I mean, you really mean to tell me they didn't remove themselves from Voyagers scans, if it could be scanned at all by such ancient technology? There's literally no way you can justify that without being fanfic-y to the point of absurdity.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
This describes 90% of STO's content.